To say that Bryn and Emma Parry, co-founders of the charity ‘Help For Heroes’, are on the most important mission of their lives might be an understatement. They don’t have the traditional zeal of the missionary: their approach to fund raising for wounded and disabled servicemen and women is more a storm of conviction that here is a need to raise a massive amount of money. And to raise it now. And nothing is going to stop them. So far, nothing has.
     A chance visit to Birmingham’s Selly Oak hospital in 2007 by Bryn and Emma was the start of something unique, inspirational, revolutionary. Bryn remembers the moment when they walked into a ward with thirty to forty young men who were terribly injured. Emma picks up the story. ‘We both thought, we’ve got to do a terrific fundraising event, we’ve got to raise a huge amount of money. And that was the moment – we’ve never looked back.’
     ‘This whole idea,’ says Bryn, ‘is to make it simple. It’s not about politics. It’s not about criticism. And it’s not about whether things are right or wrong. It’s simply about young men and women who’ve given up their time and their lives for their country, and in many cases have been wounded and will live with the consequences of that for the rest of their lives.’
     It is a conviction that has succeeded in raising just under £24 million since Help For Heroes was started in 2007. Since then, there was a bike ride through France in 2008 in which 276 people, some of them amputees or disabled in other ways, hit the road to raise money for the swimming pool at the Ministry of Defence Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court in Surrey.
     £1.3 million was raised. This year, they cycled all the way to Paris, up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomph and up to now have raised £750,000, although the money is still pouring in. There has been a rugby match at Twickenham, attended by 52,000 people, including members of the royal family. £1.4 million was raised.
     The dynamo behind the fund raising is Mark Elliott, an ex-Grenadier Guardsman, who forged a special friendship with Bryn and Emma. They met with a group of friends in Salisbury.
     ‘“How the bloody hell do we do this?” we said. We started by moving a desk and a table into a friend’s attic, and we said, “well, a computer and a desk will do this”. This was September 2007. We didn’t know what was going to happen. Then on 1 October Bryn went on breakfast TV and spoke brilliantly and passionately. After that, all hell broke loose!’
     I met Mark at Tidworth, Hampshire, at the unit that has been made available to them, free of charge, by a commercial concern. ‘People across the country are picking up on what we are doing,’ Mark told me, ‘and I think they like the way we do business. It’s money in, money out. I want to be the charity that has no money. I don’t need money to run the charity. I have no overheads, so every single penny goes to where it’s needed.’
     I asked Mark to tell me in his words what the charity is about. ‘It’s about doing stuff now and doing it properly. There are no compromises with Help for Heroes: if they need it, they get it. They must have the very best. Of course, the other service charities do a phenomenal job – the British Legion, the RAF Benevolent Fund, the Army Benevolent Fund – they provide benevolence. That’s not what we do. We act like a hose putting out a fire. If you’ve got a problem, we’ll sort it out.
     That’s what Help for Heroes is – it’s quick, it’s efficient, and it’s about doing something now.
     ‘The pool at Headley Court is being built - £8.5 million raised for that. Phil Packer, despite his spinal injury, completed the London Marathon in two weeks and raised over £1 million.
     They need to build a new wing at Headley Court, there’s no way they could have raised the money as quickly as they needed it. Emma went down last week and dug the turf, and the builders are in. This is not about “let’s have a committee meeting”, this is about, blimey, let’s just do it.’

Battle Back: Wind in the Hair

There are a number of initiatives to which money is going. ‘The MOD have come up with a wonderful thing called Battle Back. It’s adaptive adventure training. The guys are skiing and water skiing. We had a young man, Rory, who lost his leg in 2007. He used to stick his head out of the car window just to remember what it was like to feel the wind in his hair. We thought, “ we can do something about this.” It was the idea of Col. Fred Hargreaves, who said, “why aren’t our wounded guys going skiing? The fact that they haven’t got a leg, or an arm, or two legs, that shouldn’t stop them.” So Battle Back was born.
     You can use public money when the guys go on their travels, but we bring the added extras, what we call the “nice-to-haves”.
     If you’ve been injured and you’re going skiing, you might like your parents to come out for the weekend. Well of course the army can’t pay for that, so we do.’
     ‘Battle Back is about getting the wind in the hair, it’s about enabling. The loss of a limb is also an opportunity. These guys are young, they are highly trained, they are extremely fit and they are extremely bright, but just something’s happened to them. This is what our wounded servicemen and women are like actually, they are upbeat, they are young, they are inspiring, they are incredible people.’
     ‘The guy who runs Battle Back, Major Martin Colclough, Army Physical Training Corps, helps Britain’s paralympic team and he works with physiotherapists who work on the injured.
     So how quickly can we get them out of physiotherapy and say “Right, come on, let’s get you water-skiing, let’s go skiing in Bavaria.” We’ve got one young guy who sadly had a motor bike accident, he’s in a wheelchair but he’s learning to fly. He had a first flying lesson, and they were like, “Blimey! You’re good at this!” And he’s hoping now to be a flying instructor. And there’s Rory, with one leg, wing-walking! That got the wind in his hair all right!’

Recovery Centres

Another initiative is recovery centres. ‘The Army are going to have seven of them. I can’t grow a leg back, I can’t grow an arm back, so that’s a given, so what can we do to help the transition back into their army jobs or out into civilian street? A young Marine is fighting in Helmand Province and bang! suddenly he’s a triple amputee. Well, no one’s changed his head. He’s still a fighting Marine and the fact that he’s got a limb or limbs missing is almost irrelevant. So here’s a recovery centre, can we get civilian firms to come in and say, “You are really rather good. I can give you a job!” Can we then say, “Right, let’s retrain him to be a clerk. Let’s look after him, let’s give him an environment that’s second to none”. My motto is “No Compromise” – these recovery centres have to be something special.’
     ‘The Ministry of Defence can provide the basic framework, and we provide the “nice-to-haves”. Now, let’s make this spectacular. Let’s put in a swimming pool, let’s put in a gym.
     It’ll be run by the military, not by us. These are military guys, they do need, God bless them, an RSM to say “Actually, you might have one leg, one arm, but get your arse out of bed.
     Frankly, I don’t do sympathy.” And that’s vital. They understand it.’

Support from Freemasonry

Help for Heroes is a charity in a hurry. When charities like this appeal for funds, Freemasonry is there ready to contribute.
     The Province of Hampshire and Isle of Wight, under their Provincial Grand Master, Brian Bellinger, has led the way with contributions exceeding £60,000, plus significant amounts sent by individual Lodges in the Province. The Grand Charity have supported the ‘Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association’ appeal, ‘Home From Home’, with a grant of £100,000 to provide accommodation for relatives at Headley Court and Selly Oak. Under the ‘matching fund’ scheme, up to £5,000 per Province is made available from the Grand Charity to match donations by their lodges – so far, at least two Provinces have taken this up in respect of Help For Heroes. In addition, there are currently around 4,000 Relief Chest holders and each Lodge is free to make a donation: since January 2008, a very impressive total of £72,900 has been donated from Relief Chest accounts to the charity.
     This is a charity like no other, with a dynamism that is infectious. Mark Elliott gives us some brave words to match the bravery of the wounded, and Freemasonry may answer too, by the generosity of its donations.
     Further information at www.helpforheroes.org.uk